Smart therapy environment : a design science research towards innovative artefact design for autistic children’s social interaction and emotion recognition

Abstract

Autism is a lifelong pervasive developmental disorder that affects social, communication, and reasoning skills. Manual therapy merged with the latest artificial intelligence-based systems has shown promising results in developing social interaction and emotion recognition in Autistic children. Technological innovations for social interaction and emotion recognition in Autistic children are one of the most challenging and highly prioritized research objectives in today's world. In this study, the concept of a Smart therapy environment is introduced for children with Autism which aims to offer the following functionalities: (1) Simple and easy games projected on the sensor-based floor mat for social interaction and emotion recognition development in Autistic children. (2) Scientific therapy procedures, software applications, virtual reality basics, and robotic interventions inspire game designs. (3) Artificial Intelligence-based voice assistant as an avatar to guide and reinforce children during games. (4) Continuous monitoring of children’s excitement, facial expressions, and stress through the smartwatch. Currently, no such system design concepts involve intelligent projected playgrounds with those technological aspects together for Autistic children’s social interaction and emotion recognition development. So, the responsibility to develop the design of a Smart therapy environment cannot be underestimated and is something to focus on.

The study utilizes the framework and guidelines of design science research and assesses previous literature related to therapy for Autistic children’s social interaction and emotion recognition development and how technology has been utilized in them. All of those studies help to identify factual perspectives of technological and manual establishments for Autistic children. At the same time, those concepts are the main tool to develop basic design principles that create a knowledge base for the artefact design of the study. Those design principles are used to develop the proposed Smart therapy environment including a few prototype designs of games. Those are further evaluated by interviewing professionals who were engaged in government project for Autistic children’s identification, and early childhood learning in Bangladesh. The evaluation results encourage the future development and practical implementation of such a significant and feasible system as well as bring a few challenges to consider in reality. The entire study could be an inspirational concept in future research to combine smart and feasible technical aspects. The dynamic use of an artificial intelligence-based voice assistant in the form of a projected avatar and an interactive smart playground concept will inspire future researchers to think about new dimensions in Autism research.